


10 Points for Collateral Damage

by Phosphorite



Category: Free!
Genre: Established Relationship, Humor, M/M, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-26
Updated: 2015-01-26
Packaged: 2018-03-09 05:21:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3237806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phosphorite/pseuds/Phosphorite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The rules are as follows: the goal is to kiss the other person as often as possible without getting caught. The game will last for the final three days of Rin's holiday, at the end of which the player with more points wins.</p><p>Wins what?</p><p>Well, does it really matter, as long as someone does?</p>
            </blockquote>





	10 Points for Collateral Damage

**Author's Note:**

> This story was born out of two things: one, a couple of misplaced tweets about a game of stolen kisses by Cloud, which gave me a mental image impossible to ignore, and two, Penny asking if I had anything to pinch hit for 30 days of Rin.
> 
> Combine the two, and you have a perfect excuse to finish completely senseless post-canon fluff after writing nothing but angst and heartbreak for months.
> 
> It's a silly story. But I hope it makes someone smile.

 

 

The first time it happens, it’s a complete accident.

It’s because of something ridiculous that Haruka says, frowning at a picture of a colourful mascot grinning on the side of a drink.

"He's smiling," Haruka mutters, "Like he knows how I die."

The onigiri in Rin's hand nearly implodes in plastic wrapping, as he breaks out in laughter in the middle of the konbini aisle. The look on Haruka's face is nothing short of _There's nothing funny about this_ when he turns his head, but never has the chance to express so much in words before Rin's lips catch the side of Haruka's temple.

It's a fluid little gesture, not so different from the one that landed on Haruka's forehead when his hair stuck out at a funny angle this morning, but also comes to an abrupt halt as soon as Rin remembers where they are.

"I–– I totally meant to do that."

Granted, what gives Rin away might be the stammer, or his eyes darting back and forth on the aisle; luckily, the nice thing about Tokyo is that both the salaryman and teenage girl picking out a quick snack are both far more occupied with their phones.

"Hnh," Haruka says.

It's a _hnh_ that sounds a lot like _I'm not buying your shit_ , though. After all, they may have been officially-unofficially together since graduation, but an ocean between a relationship also means it wasn't that long since their wrists touching in public still made Rin nearly dive into a sewer drain.

"What? It's not like _you'd_ ever have the guts to," Rin counters on reflex, the memory still far too vivid in his head – which technically makes it kind of an accident too, for delay in Rin's brain cells to connect his defensive bluffs with the fact that Haruka always, _always_ follows them through.

Pushing the drink in his hand back on the shelf, Haruka turns to look at him, and it's a gesture that comes with part defiance and part intrigue.

"Have the guts to do what?" he asks.

The mascot on the shelf is still grinning, but Rin's pretty sure it's actually laughing at him.

 

 

 

The rules are as follows:

The game of _Wait what the hell are we really doing this_ (also known as _Shut the hell up Haru, you try coming up with a better name_ ) is about both players trying to sneak an undetected kiss from one another in public. The game zone includes any area featuring one (1) or more potential witnesses, none of whom are to actually catch the players red-handed. The penalty for being caught is the reduction of half (50%) of the points accumulated so far. Sabotaging another player will reduce the points by seventy percent (70%).

In other words, the goal is to kiss the other person as often as possible without getting caught.

Different body parts yield different points, which are listed as follows:

  *     1 point for below the shoulders
  *     3 points for above the shoulders, excluding face
  *     5 points for face
  *     10 points for direct kiss



("What exactly constitutes as below the shoulders," Haruka asks, but Rin kicks him underneath the table.)

Different witnesses yield different points, which are listed as follows:

  *     1 point for a complete stranger
  *     3 points for Makoto
  *     5 points for someone in a position of authority
  *     10 points for Sousuke



("Would I get twenty for skyping Nagisa," Haruka asks, and Rin kicks him again.)

The game will last for the final three days of Rin's holiday, at the end of which the player with more points wins.

Wins what?

Well, does it really matter, as long as someone does?

 

 

 

The game starts on the morning of the first day, and already Haruka isn't playing fair.

"Good morning," Rin says as he reaches the end of the corridor , noticing the old lady sweeping by the entrance of Haruka's apartment block; she tilts up her head, smiles and returns the greeting.

Behind them, Rin hears Haruka unlock the door, but as soon as he hits the stairs something happens: there's a sound like _ah_ and the thud of a stumble, and Rin whirls around just in time to catch Haruka staggering down. The old lady lets out a concerned "oh", and for a second Rin's heart skips with intuitive panic.

It skips with something different entirely when Haruka calmly straightens himself up, and in doing so, Rin feels a pair of soft lips gently brushing the exposed side of his forearm; shit, no, he can feel the freaking _smile_ in the kiss before Haruka yanks his shoulders back, calmly glances over Rin's shoulder, and nods at the old lady.

"I'm fine, Kimura-san. I just tripped."

"Please take care in the future!" the lady breathes out in relief, and once she turns back to her sweeping, Rin harshly yanks Haruka along.

"You did that on _purpose_?!" he hisses, but Haruka's expression remains calmly unabashed.

"Yes," he says, "And now I have six points."

Dodging a lady on the sidewalk, Rin scrunches up his face. "What? No you don't. That's one point for below shoulders, and one point for a stranger."

"Kimura-san is my landlord," Haruka duly points out. "That's authority. So I get six."

"Screw you," Rin swears under his breath as they turn for the subway station, but it's still day one, and that day has only just begun.

 

 

 

The Yamanote from Shinjuku is crowded with weekend passengers and the odd confused tourist, but it's all precisely according to plan. Granted, it's a plan Rin only comes up with when they walk out of the Kinokuniya at the station; the winding stairs remind him of Haruka's accident, as well as the fact that he is now six points behind in their game.

On the train, mild dread risks choking up his nerve, but then a teenager lightly stumbles into Rin's arm and he knows it's time.

"Hey, what time is it?" he asks, wasting no time to appreciate the irony when Haruka lifts his eyes from the back cover of his book.

"Don't you––" Haruka begins, but Rin's fingers curl around his wrist and yank it up close; right on cue, the book in Haruka's hand rises and unintentionally covers the side of Rin's face, a moment before he lands a swift yet firm kiss on the underside of Haruka's wrist.

It all happens very quickly, but Haruka's shoulders give a visible start in response. As Rin leans back, the stun on Haruka's face is enough to fuel his grin when he breathes out,

"No, wait, I forgot the one with the watch was me."

Instinctively, Haruka's gaze darts over his shoulder, then over Rin's, but nobody's given this a second thought. Wordlessly, Rin nods at the elderly man behind Haruka, the teenage girl next to himself, an office lady to Haruka's left and what appears to be two Finnish tourists to his right.

 _Five people_ , Rin mouths, then leans to whisper in Haruka's ear:

"We're even."

 

 

 

There is something very unnerving about the way Haruka's eyes narrow at Rin, but for the rest of the day, he does not attempt to retaliate. Instead, he patiently watches Rin pick out souvenirs for his team in Australia, a pair of pants completely unsuited for the Southern hemisphere, as well as a phone charm that looks a like the Tokyo tower and Tokyo Skytree trying to wrestle each other to death.

It's almost enough to lull Rin into blissful oblivion, but right before they head for the subway station for Haruka's home line, Haruka comes to a halt.

"Wait, Rin. I forgot about something."

Watching him whirl around, Rin quickly realizes Haruka's headed for the nearest police box; and maybe it ought to be a glaring warning sign, yet it's also not the first time Haruka's found it imperative to bother civil servants over nonsensical things like the location of the nearest public bath.

But that's clearly not what he has in mind now.

"Excuse me," Haruka says, and the man inside the box reaches towards him behind the screen, "But I think we might be lost. My friend is leaving Tokyo the day after tomorrow, and I'm trying to show him the Dolphin Shrine."

Although the lie is as glaring as the pants Rin bought earlier that day, the policeman frowns in earnest.

"...I'm afraid there aren't such things in this ward, at least not as far as I'm aware."

"No, there is," Haruka insists, and the flatness of his voice is enough to make even Rin do a double-take on whether this is a ruse after all, "It says so, right on the map. I can show you."

Dutiful as ever, the policeman pulls out a paper map of central Tokyo. It's large enough to spill all over the side of the box, but when Haruka pulls Rin down to inspect their current location, two things happen at once:

One, he pushes the map up to block part of the screen, and two, the shuffling paper masks the sound of his lips catch Rin's skin right beneath the jaw.

"What the shit––" Rin blurts out, but while the touch comes with a hint of teeth, Haruka pulls back with face as unfazed as this morning.

"You're right," he says, folding the map gracefully before handing it over to the policeman, "I guess I must have read the name wrong."

They get five steps away from the box before Haruka calmly glances at the still-flustered Rin.

"I know, okay?!" Rin snaps, "Five for authority and five for face. So you get ten points for that stunt, moron."

"I do," Haruka agrees, and if Rin didn't know any better, he could swear it sounds a little smug.

 

 

 

So maybe it's a little childish to hold it against Haruka – the incident by the police box is well within the boundaries of their rules, but Rin's embarrassment and competitiveness still act as incentive to outlaw Haruka's entire apartment off-limits for the rest of the game.

"That means, no kissing while we're at your house. _At all_ ," he declares while pointing a piece of parsley at Haruka, "You're in the lead, so I get to decide the handicap."

Haruka hardly takes his eyes off the stove, but there's a definite twitch in his brow.

"But there are no witnesses here," he responds, and Rin lets out a groan; within minutes he rummages through what little belongings Haruka has set up, and pulls out a three inch tall wooden figure of Iwatobi's godforsaken mascot.

"There's your witness," Rin says and plants the Iwatobi-chan on the squat table across the room, "I don't think he ever blinks, so unless you want to disqualify yourself, you better keep your stupid face to yourself."

"Fine," Haruka mutters, but much like the _hnh_ , it's a tone Rin can easily recognize: not outward refusal, but a silent anarchy that he spends the rest of the night expressing through selective physical contact.

Rin can tell, because each accidental and not-so-accidental brush is like a lead-in to a kiss that never connects; every time Haruka reaches past Rin to grab something –a water bottle, the remote– he does so with a precision that leaves his lips hovering half an inch away from Rin's skin.

It is _very_ distracting.

"The deranged bird _stays_ , Haru," Rin still grits his teeth together, and there's a sound at the back of Haruka's throat like a grunt.

Of course, revenge has always taken many forms in Nanase Haruka, and so; at night he flicks off the lights and wordlessly curls up against the curve of Rin's back, but his hands slide down to rest on the groove of Rin's hips all the same.

"Haru," Rin breathes out, but the head buried at the back of his neck only shifts with a light nuzzle.

"I know," his voice comes muffled, "The bird stays."

It's not what Rin plans to say, specifically, but then Haruka's fingers slide under the elastic of his waistband and dig into his skin, and Rin almost bites his own tongue not to express the exact opposite.

As usual, it's all fun and games until you lie awake for three hours straight trying to will your hormones out of the nearest window.

Or; as usual, Rin _really_ hasn't thought this thing through.

 

 

 

"I mean, I don't mind showing you," Makoto says, and there's a smile in his voice that sounds a little confused all at once, "But I'm sure this is something you could have easily done at Haru's place."

"No," Rin replies, and his response is firm enough to make Makoto flinch; softening his expression, Rin beckons at the computer anew. "...You're a better teacher than Haru, that's all."

Makoto's brow does a light twitch, but he turns to face the screen with a sigh. "Well, if learning how to set up these training graphs is what you really want to do most on your last days in Tokyo, how can I say no?"

"It's not just me," Rin says, tilting his head to the side. "Haru's _dying_ to see too."

Haruka shoots him down with a glare of suspicion, but Rin yanks him over before he can object. The whole afternoon has been terrible, like living with static electricity; sure, it _was_ Rin who chose to carefully inspect twenty seven unread e-mails on his phone in the morning while absent-mindedly straddling Haruka's waist, but it's not his fault Haruka can't handle mental warfare in reverse.

After all, Rin is still ten points behind on this game and he'll be damned to a Mikoshiba-infested hell if he has to see a subdued smile of victory every time he skypes Haruka for the next few months.

"So, basically how the program works is like this," Makoto goes on innocently enough, lifting a finger to his laptop screen, "You set up a time period, and then add different sections for the parts of your regime you want to improve. You can add everything from exercise to diet, and it calculates ideal parameters for each area."

"Great," Rin responds, and subtly shifts his body to stand slightly behind Haruka, "Now please explain all of them to me in meticulous detail."

 _Rin_ , Haruka's suspicious stare screams, but it's not a word that ever actually leaves his mouth. As Makoto's soft voice proceeds to note on the details of the software, Rin can practically feel Haruka swallow on reflex instead when Rin's lips press against the nape of his neck.

It's a far more deliberate gesture, now that they're not flanked by prying eyes – there's only Makoto, who's far too enamored by the program he helped develop to notice his best friend gripping the back of his seat once Rin's tongue continues to run over Haruka's skin.

"––And then there's the age settings, and the prediction diagrams that you can use for younger students," Makoto goes on enthusiastically, "Which really makes this ideal for athletes of all ages."

"Uh huh," Rin counters encouragingly, while fighting the grin off his voice; Haruka's teeth are ground so hard together it's a miracle they don't screech once Rin's lips travel higher on his neck, grazing the spot right behind his ear.

"I mean, it still needs some work but even in beta stage I think you could really find it useful, and if your team in Australia tries it out, maybe you can give feedback so the next version is even more stable?"

"Sure," Rin pauses to say, but Haruka can barely catch his breath before Rin licks one final kiss down to the base of his hair, lazy as it is heated; with that Rin pulls away and reaches towards Makoto, who instinctively turns around.

His brows knit together at the sight of Haruka's tensed shoulders and locked jaw.

"Hmm? Is something wrong?"

"Nope," Rin answers on Haruka's behalf, because if past experiences are anything to go by, it will be a good ten minutes before Haruka regains the ability of speech. "Hey, you wouldn't be able to show me how to do calculations on that thing?"

"...Oh, sure," Makoto says, still puzzled, but boots up the part of the program that adds figures together, "What do you want me to type?"

"...What's three times three plus three, exactly?" Rin innocently answers, and while Haruka's aggravation might not fix his vocal cords, it's more than enough to drill a hole shaped like his glare on Rin's back.

 

 

 

In all fairness, it feels a lot like war from there.

Rin's in the lead, but with a small enough margin that it makes both of them tense. Gone is the curious, even languid game of the day before – when they leave Makoto's place and walk towards the station, Rin cannot help but keep a cautious distance, knowing it's only a matter of time before Haruka will retaliate.

"Rin," Haruka says, and before he knows it, Rin's feet sprint into a run.

Okay, so _cautious distance_ is a gross understatement, then, but Rin can afford one or two of those since he is also in the bizarre process of dashing down the street to avoid being kissed by his boyfriend.

It's Haruka's instinct to chase after him, which makes both of them look completely out of their mind. Yet it's also a pursuit that Rin feels easily justifies the means: the faster he makes it to the station, the faster they get back to Haruka's apartment, and the sooner Rin can finally breathe again under the comforting stare of Iwatobi-chan.

Wait, no, _that_ must be the most bizarre thing he's thought about all week.

"Rin, _wait_ ," Haruka calls out after him with weary lungs; competitiveness always gives Haruka a superhuman boost, but the truth is still that he's terrible on land. "Will you _please stop running_?! I won't try anything weird."

Letting his feet come to a gradual halt, Rin shoots him a wary look.

"You're always weird," he mutters, but Haruka's honesty seems legitimate enough when he catches up.

True to his word, they spend the rest of the journey in relative peace. That's not entirely a good thing, though; Haruka's composure feels nothing short of unnerving, since it's not _like_ him to shrug off such blatant defeat when the gap between their scores is so thin.

Rin is right to have his doubts, of course.

As soon as the door closes behind them back at Haruka's place, Haruka pulls out his phone.

"What are you doing?" Rin asks right on cue, but Haruka ignores him flat.

"Hi," he breathes out when the person picks up at the other end of the line. "You need to come over. What? Yes, it's about Rin. ....Yes, he does. No. Yes. _No_. ....Maybe. Alright."

" _What are you doing_ ," Rin repeats once Haruka hangs up, but to no avail; Haruka only proceeds to push his chair against the wall, grabs the Iwatobi-chan from the table, and then climbs on the chair.

Then he proceeds to shove the mascot directly into the air conditioner.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Rin's literally screaming, but the coughing of the machine masks his voice; meanwhile, Haruka flexes his shoulder blades, drops down from the chair, and turns to Rin.

"This won't take long," he says in a deadpan tone, and Rin cannot help but spend the next twenty minutes wondering if it's possible to get a discount on postponed plane tickets if you can prove your significant other has snapped.

It takes roughly those same twenty minutes for a thud at the door to bring Rin out of his stupor.

"It's open," Haruka calmly calls out, and the door almost flies off its hinges.

"What is it?! I came as soon as I could, it sounded like Rin's–– .... _wait a goddamn second_."

Sousuke's tone switches from concerned to apprehensive, coinciding with the exact moment his eyes land on Rin in full health of body and mind.

"Hi," Haruka says.

Rin wants to facepalm and scream, preferably in that order.

He shuffles over and grabs Haruka by the arm, trying to keep his voice down. "Are you _nuts_?!"

Haruka doesn't answer straight away. Instead, he glances at the Iwatobi-chan stuck in the air conditioner, then at Sousuke, then back at Rin.

" _He_ blinks," he says, and Rin realizes he has made a horrible mistake.

 

 

 

However, the rules of the game clearly state that they cannot sabotage one another, so all Rin can do from here on out is stand there while Sousuke enters the apartment, piercing Haruka with a doubtful glare.

"I thought you guys had some kind of _serious problem_ ," Sousuke enunciates his words clearly, as if talking to an intentionally obtuse child, "And you said it had to do with _Rin_."

Haruka doesn't so much as blink.

"We do. It does." He turns, and points towards the struggling air conditioner. "The AC is broken. It's Summer, so if it remains that way for the rest of tonight, Rin might die."

"Then fix it yourself!" Sousuke snaps, and tries to look for some semblance of explanation in Rin's gaze; unfortunately, all Rin's at liberty to do is shrug like some kind of terrible internet meme.

"We can't." Haruka sounds so brazen it ought to win accolades. "We're too short."

"Oh for the love of..." Sousuke groans, looks like he's about to pull out his hair, then sighs. "Alright, fine. I'll take a look at it, since I'm already here. But if this becomes a habit, Nanase, I'm moving to Sapporo."

As he passes Rin, the look Sousuke casts him growls _Look at your choices, look at your life_ , which is a sentiment Rin's finding it very hard to argue with by the second.

Once Sousuke hoists himself up to inspect the gurgling machine, Haruka beckons at Rin to take a seat. Next to the table, their location is not directly behind Sousuke's, yet clearly in his blind spot; Rin knows it must imply a countdown to the rest of Haruka's nonsensical plan, but the brashness of it still manages to catch Rin by surprise.

When Sousuke's arms reach up to flank the rest of his peripheral vision, Haruka's whole upper body twists sharply and his fingers clutch around the collar of Rin's shirt. It's the adrenaline in this grip that finally divulges Haruka's nerve, a split moment before he crushes their mouths together in a direct, unabashed kiss.

 _Don't underestimate me_ is what it feels like, and it's almost inspiring how flawlessly Haruka's strategy falls into place.

Truly, there is no reason why it shouldn't work.

But there's just one tiny problem.

And that problem, as usual, is _Rin_ ; because it's _his_ mind that snaps, that short-circuits spectacularly the second his nerves actually register Haruka's tongue pushing down on his own.

Granted, it's arguable whether Haruka would have ever succeeded in pulling back either, but it's definitely Rin who blocks that option. The hand that snakes behind Haruka's neck works on instinct, hastened with these countless hours of forced distance when Haruka's back arches to lean into his touch.

It's not the low, helpless sound from Haruka's throat that alerts Sousuke to their presence.

No, Rin's fairly sure that if anything, it's the table he personally knocks over in an equally laughable attempt to push up against Haruka. The clatter almost sends Sousuke taking a nose-dive to a blackout, although his expression upon whirling around clearly implies it's an alternative he'd have preferred.

" _OH HELL NO_!" comes the heartfelt cry, followed by a loud thud where Sousuke leaps down to the ground, "Fixing your air con was _not_ code for signing up for your personal home AV!"

Stumbling into things while trying to avoid eye contact, Sousuke's swift retreat for the door makes him look a lot like a glitched videogame graphic.

"Rin, I'll see you at the airport tomorrow, okay?! And Nanase–– oh, just go fuck yourself, alright?!"

And then he's gone.

 

 

 

It would be courteous to say Sousuke's turbulent exit is enough to disentangle Rin's hands from Haruka's hair, but it would also be a lie.

"Rin––" Haruka finally breaks off with a gasp, "––You just sabotaged me."

"I know," Rin says, and then his lips are on Haruka's neck, his jaw, the curve of his chin; it makes Haruka's fingers flex around the shirt on Rin's back, but he's clearly also not done talking.

"That means–– your score went down seventy percent," Haruka swallows, "––That means you lose."

Internally screaming, Rin pulls back just enough to stare Haruka directly in the face.

"Haru," he hisses, "Does it honestly look like I _give a damn about the game anymore_?!"

In two heartbeats flat, Haruka's brows knit together in blatant offense, and Rin wants to kick himself in the head.

"Shit, I didn't––" he swears under his breath, then takes a deep breath. It's always an inhuman effort to wrestle himself back from that brink of senseless _want_ when Haruka flicks that switch in Rin's head, but if there's anything that has the power to counter it, it's Haruka feeling hurt.

"I didn't mean it like that. I did–– I do care about it," he says, and it comes with a softness that he does not need to feign. "And you won. With that thing you pulled just now, you would have won either way."

It sparks something akin to a twitch on the side of Haruka's mouth, barely short of a smile. "I know."

"Just..."

Rin hears himself trailing off, but the pause finishes with a groan. "We probably shouldn't play it anymore. Y'know, if just to err on the side of caution."

"Because you'd lose again."

" _No_ , because I think we've done enough collateral damage already, by destroying not only your one source of ventilation but also my best friend's fragile mind."

As if the universe agrees, the air conditioner chooses that exact moment to cough and spit out a tiny Iwatobi-chan. It falls on the floor, where it does a light twirl before ultimately plopping down, staring directly at where Rin still has Haruka pinned down on the floor.

"He's staring at me," Haruka says, "Like he knows what I do at night."

The flatness of Haruka's voice makes Rin burst into unexpected laughter, and the tremors of his body knock Haruka into the ground.

Leaning right back over, the kiss he lands on Haruka's temple is a lot like the one on the konbini aisle, but not followed with panic anymore.

"How about," he says, and cannot stop the grin that stretches across his face, "We make another game. Only this one's called, _The one who can throw that freaking bird the furthest, wins_."

Wins what?

Well, that hardly matters.

In the end, both of them always do.

**Author's Note:**

> My original plan was to finish another one-shot for the actual day of Rin's birthday, but in case I don't end up having the time, I'm glad I got the chance to finish this one at the very least.
> 
> Happy birthday Rin, I love you kid.


End file.
